“No school today!” All of us can remember waking up to these words connected to whatever weather or current event thing and breathing a sigh of relief. A day without learning, without teachers nagging: a day to do whatever you wanted. What are today’s …
One thing, which is constant in health care, is that it is continuously evolving. The challenges health care leaders are facing are not simple. They are often multifaceted, which require strategic, creative, and inclusive solutions. There are competing…
An excerpt from Parenting in a Pandemic: How to help your family through COVID-19. When my husband and I made the decision to purchase a house outside of New York City, the prior owners left behind a trampoline. The trampoline is big, above ground, and…
August 1 to 7 is National Breastfeeding Week. I wish it wasn’t. I said it. I’m a family medicine physician with experience in working with moms and newborns in their feeding journeys. I don’t support a breastfeeding week. I wish it was something else l…
Today at work, a mother asked me what I would do if it was my son in the isolette and not hers. It’s not the first time I have been asked this. I understand where the question comes from, and yet I’m at a loss of what to say every time. Not because I h…
This is the million-dollar question that I’ve been asked over and over again by distraught parents wanting to do right by their children. Parents want to have their children stay home so they can keep them healthy and safe. At the same time, they are w…
Writing a pandemic novel is sort of like running a mock code. You may feel a tinge of fear as you work through the actively changing scenario, but mostly you feel the excitement of the challenge. Yet when an actual patient is deteriorating before you, …
Walking into the COVID ward in the children’s hospital, those words seemed etched on an invisible wall, a wall that I wanted to choose to stay behind. It was a wall I could stay behind for the first couple months of the pandemic where multiple studies…
“Where were you born?” “Here!” Yousef (not real name) with happy, gleaming eyes excitedly pointed at Algeria on the laminated world map hanging on the bulletin board in the exam room. “And Dad was born here,” pointing to Morocco with mom nodding approv…
Concern There is no debate on the insurmountable value of kids needing to be in schools. CDC data shows that children account for 6% of COVID-19 cases and 0.2% of all deaths. Yet, the system can miserably fail if bullied into opening. Children could…
